To get involved in ethical investing, you need to define ethical, as it refers to business dealings today. An ethical investment plan is one that is moral – one that upholds your values both personally and financially.
Therefore, ethical investing allows you to follow the right path with respect your stock picks. While it may seem abstract at first, an ethical investment portfolio can lead to a solid investment plan – one that follows a system that is based on the Golden Rule.
Learning More About Ethical Investments
When you focus on ethical investments, you’re making an all-important decision, one that allows you to help make the world a better place. If you’re wondering how to set up an ethical portfolio, you need to find out what companies are following the Golden Rule – “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” In other words, you want companies to follow a moral code – treating their customers, vendors, and employees as they’d like to be treated themselves.
The idea is to practice kindness and not to harm people or the earth. For example, you don’t want to put your money into those companies committed to making the world a safer and cleaner place. If one of those components are missing – safety or environmental responsibility — you need to re-review your investment decisions.
By taking this approach, you can narrow down your investments to those that help you follow your moral code, or a code that is based on the Golden Rule. Your goal is to maintain a portfolio that features companies devoted to doing the right thing – to improving the world environmentally and socially.
Making a Selection: How Ethical Investing Works
The companies you choose then will place an equal value on making money and ensuring the protection and the quality of life of others. Therefore, you want to invest in those companies who not only want to follow the Golden Rule but who listen to their investors.
The management of a firm has a stake in making it as investable as possible because they are typically paid based on the stock price. As a result, the price of a company’s shares usually increase in direct proportion to the level of demand for those shares. This may mean upholding the beliefs of ethical investors – people who are committed, just like you, to moral investment decisions.
Therefore, to apply and meet your investment goals, you must first measure a company’s influence socially and environmentally. For example, a company may employ a large number of people in a community. However, they may also be responsible for spewing toxic fumes into the air. Therefore, you’ll need to find out what companies provide jobs for people and are also committed to cleaning up the air.
Concluding Thoughts about Ethical Investments
As you can see, investing involves more than making money, it also entails looking at how you want your money to be spent. You can make a difference in your own small and unique way when you make ethical investments part of your current and future financial plan.
